Joining Cerberus
by babigurl21793
Summary: What led Joker to join Cerberus
1. Chapter 1

I'm sweating and shifting all over my bed, having the same nightmare I've been having for the past year and a half.

_"Come on Joker. Going down with ship won't save the Normandy."_

_"Get in the pod! Go Joker!"_

_"Commander! Commander!"_

I sit up quickly covered in a cold sweat; it's the same nightmare every night. Seeing John die over and over again and it's all my fault. If I had left the cockpit when I was supposed to then he never would've had to make me leave. He could've gotten into an escape pod himself and he would've been ok.

A year and a half and I'm still grieving; still missing John. Most people thought that Kaiden and John were close, but it was actually me and John. John wanted to tell people; he wanted everyone to know that we were together, but I didn't. I wasn't ashamed of John; hell I loved him, still do. I was more concerned with how people would perceive him. The great Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel is in a relationship with a cripple. John said that he didn't care but I just didn't want to risk it; and now I regret it.

I slowly get out of my bed and walk over to the window; as I'm staring out I went from sad to angry. After the crash the Alliance grounded me and forbid any talk about reapers or anything else John found out about; when John died the Alliance just wanted everything gone and buried along with him. Liara, Tali, Garrus, Wrex and I all tried to fight it; tried to make sure that defenses were still built up in order to try and protect everyone from the Reapers, but it didn't work. After I was grounded everyone saw that there was honestly no point. Wrex went back bounty hunting, Tali continued with her pilgrimage; Liara continued her studies and Garrus went off the grid. The only one of us that stayed in the Alliances good side was Kaiden, and that was only because he had no problem in denying what happened.

I've tried getting any job possible that would let me fly but it seems as though the council has pretty much blacklisted me; the bastards. I miss flying; before I flew because it gave me the freedom that I missed out on in life due to my Vrolik's syndrome, but now flying would just make me feel closer to John.

In the midst of my self-loathing I received a message on my console. Walking over to it I didn't recognize the name, but I opened it anyway; not too many people know how to contact me. The message was from someone named, Miranda Lawson.

_Mr. Moreau,_

_Please meet me at the ramen shop on the Citadel. I have an offer for you to fly again._

_Miranda Lawson_

Well, that's very mysterious; I debate going for the longest time but in the end I decide to go. I hope this is a serious offer and not someone wanting to play a cruel joke on me; it'll be flight school all over again.

When I arrived at the ramen shop I began looking around for anyone that I knew or anyone that looked suspicious; not seeing anyone I took a seat at a table and ordered some food. I figured that I'd eat while I waited, if no one showed up at least I'd get a meal. I was half way through my ramen when this woman came out of nowhere and sat at my table; I'm guessing that this was Miranda.

"Mr. Moreau?" She asked.

"Yeah, but you can just call me Joker. Is this a legitimate job offer or am I just wasting my time here?" I asked her.

"This is a legitimate offer but there's only one thing."

That figures there's always a catch.

"And that thing would be?" I asked.

"The job isn't for the Alliance; it's for Cerberus." Instantly I started to get up and walk away, as much as I wanted to fly I didn't want to work for Cerberus.

"Joker, wait please." She said before looking around the restaurant.

"Is there somewhere we can talk in private? This is extremely important and I don't want you to make a decision without knowing all the facts. Please." Miranda looked like whatever she had to say was life or death. I finally decided to let her come back to my room so we could talk.

Once we arrived at my room, I sat down and waited for her to explain.

"Joker, I know that you don't trust Cerberus, but you need to understand we know that Shepard was looking for the Reapers and we know that the Council and the Alliance want bury what happened, but we don't. We want the truth and there's only one person that can find that truth, and that's John Shepard."

I gave a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, lady tell me something I don't know, but you're too late. John's gone and everything he dug up has been buried along with him."

"Not necessarily." She said. She pulled out a data pad and showed me a live feed of…..

No, it couldn't be; instantly there were tears in my eyes as I looked at the feed. It was John; he was alive, attached to a bunch of machines but alive.

I went to speak but my voice cracked; I took a deep breath and tried again. "How is this possible?" I asked her, finally letting the tears fall.

"When we heard what happened Cerberus began looking for Shepard's body. When we found him, we started trying to bring him back. We call it the Lazarus Project; we've completely rebuilt him just the way he was before, mind and all. We want to fund Shepard's search for the Reapers, but we know that he can't do it alone. More importantly we know that he doesn't trust Cerberus either; that's where you come in."

Still looking at the feed I can't believe it; it seems too good to be true.

"Shepard is going to need someone he trusts by his side; someone he loves." Miranda said before reaching into her pocket and pulling something out that I'd never thought that I'd see again. It was a locket that I gave John after the showdown with Saren. It held a picture of the two of us from one of our secret dates to the Citadel. Looking at the picture, we looked so happy and in love.

It was in that moment I knew what I had to do; even if John didn't come back the same he would still be back, and that's truly all I want. I wiped the tears from my face before looking up at Miranda.

"When do we leave?"


	2. Finding Joker

Have you ever been dreaming and then all of a sudden you wake up, but you're still not quite sure if you're still dreaming or not? That's how I'm feeling right now. According to Jacob, I've been dead for 2 years and Cerberus found me and brought me back to life. Why did they bring me back? That much I don't know; apparently the only person that can answer that for me is the Illusive Man; the mysterious leader of Cerberus.

As if all that isn't confusing enough, I can't figure out why Cerberus has my body and not the Alliance, or at the very least the Council. Something tells me though whatever the reasoning may be, I'm not going to like it; Joker always said that my intuition is what kept me safe in battle.

Joker.

The last time I remember seeing Joker was when I got spaced; as scary and painful as that was all I can remember is focusing on the fact that he was ok; that he was going to live. I can't imagine what he has gone through these past two years that I've been dead. Joker has always had issues trusting and getting close to people because of his Vrolik's syndrome; I was one of the first few people that he allowed himself to be close to in a long time and look what happened.

When Joker and I started our relationship, he was skeptical about being us being together because of what other people would say about it. In the beginning, I think he was more so afraid that whatever people would say about us being together would make me want to break up with him or that I was going to be ashamed of our relationship; but that was the so far from the truth. What Joker soon found out is that other people's opinions of me and what I do don't bother me; the only person's opinion that I cared about was his, and now I don't even know where he is or if he's ok. As much as I miss him, I feel really selfish; because part of me hopes that he was able to move on and find someone to be with, but the other part of doesn't want him to have moved on because I love him so much. I hope that after talking to the Illusive Man that I can try and find him or make contact with him somehow.

After Freedom's Progress

As if the Reapers weren't bad enough now we have the collectors taking entire human colonies and no one is doing anything about it. I may hate Cerberus, but it seems like they're the only one's looking to stop this from happening; but that doesn't mean that I completely trust or believe them.

Running into Tali was weird, but good; I'm glad to see that she successfully finished her pilgrimage safely and is doing well. I wanted to have the chance to talk to her and ask about everyone else, but there wasn't any time for it. After seeing her reaction to me being alive, seeing how she wasn't really angry just confused makes me want to find everyone else that was a part of my crew, well the one's that survived at least.

Heading down to speak to the Illusive Man again, he lets me know that he's willing to completely fund my mission to find a destroy the collectors in what is supposed to be a suicide mission and at this point I can't say that I care about the dangers of the mission. Even though Tali wasn't angry to see that I was alive, there was a certain distance between us that I'm not sure can be repaired. If that's how it was with Tali, I can't imagine how it would be with Garrus or Liara or Wrex, and especially not Joker.

I told the Illusive Man that I would do the mission, but I warned him that I would need a ship. He told me that he already had a ship for me; a ship with a pilot that I could trust. And that's when I heard him behind me.

"Hey Commander. Just like old times, huh?"

I turned and looked and there he was; Joker. He looked good, healthy and more importantly he looked happy to see me. I heard the Illusive Man shut down the console behind me but I didn't care; all I cared about was making my way over to Joker, hoping that he still wanted to be with me. Walking over and standing in front of Joker I was almost afraid to touch him; I was afraid that he either wouldn't actually be there or he wouldn't want to have anything to do with me; either way I wasn't sure that I could survive it. Luckily enough Joker made the decision for me; he walked over to me, stood there for a minute before he pulled me into a hug. Once I wrapped my arms back around him, I heard him softly start to cry and in that moment I knew that no matter what happened in the future I would be ok as long as I had Joker with me.


	3. Finding John

I was walking around on this Cerberus base waiting for Miranda to show up. I'd been spending the past few months in and out of their medical bay getting treatments for my Vroliks. That's one good thing about Cerberus; with the technology that they have they've been able to use cybernetics, the same ones that they used to rebuild Shepard, to give me implants to make my bones stronger. They're not as strong as someone who wasn't born with Vroliks, but they are extremely better than they were before.

When I left the med bay yesterday after what is supposed to be one of my final check-ups for my cybernetics, one of the engineers told me that they had something to show me. I don't know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn't a complete upgraded replica of the Normandy. I know that Miranda said that Cerberus wanted Shepard to feel comfortable to make sure that he could fully complete the mission to destroy the reapers but this seems a little much.

As I was standing there contemplating everything, someone else came up to and let me know that Shepard was awake and on his way to the station; and I froze. I was so excited before for Shepard to wake up but now I'm terrified. Shepard's been dead for two years; what if he doesn't remember me and what we had; more importantly what if he doesn't want anything to do with me anymore. For the rest of the night, I was plagued by thoughts and dreams of John rejecting me. What if he blamed me for him dying? If I would've left the cockpit when he first told me to then we both could've made it alive, but I didn't and John paid the ultimate price.

"Joker." I hear from behind me, I turned and looked and saw Miranda headed towards me.

"Come on, Shepard's meeting with the Illusive Man but he'll be out in a minute. It's time for Shepard to know who his pilot is." She said before leading me down the corridor. Miranda stopped at the beginning of the hallway before pointing out the door I needed to go to. Making my way down the hall I was more nervous than I've been in a long time; after I got to the door I couldn't make myself move any farther. Finally, I decided to just man up and get it over with; I opened the door in time to hear the Illusive Man tell John that he found a pilot that he thought that he could trust. As the console closed and John started to turn around I said the first thing that came to my mind.

"Hey Commander. Just like old times, huh?"

John looked shocked that it was me; I couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing though. He stood there for the longest time just staring at me before he walked over to me. When he was just a few feet away from me I saw it; the same fear and uncertainty that I was feeling was written all over John's face. He was afraid that I would turn him away; that my feelings for him had changed. In that moment I did the one thing that I'd been wanting to do for the past two years; I hugged him. At first he went a little stiff, like he wasn't expecting but the ever so slowly he wrapped his arms around me before pulling me tighter against him. It was that motion that returned hug that broke me; all I could do was cry. John Shepard was back; John was back and he still remembered me, still wanted me. In that moment, nothing else mattered to me. John Shepard was mine again.


	4. Dossiers & The Council

Besides bringing Joker on as my pilot, the Illusive Man has also prepared a list of dossiers of people that he thinks will be able to help me along with my mission. At first, I was a little skeptical about trusting him especially with everything that I know that Cerberus has done in the past, but I know this is something that only I can do and I'm going to have to put my issues aside and do the best that I can. I can honestly say though while the people the Illusive Man picked will extremely beneficial to my mission; they're a bit strange and kind of crazy.

The professor for example, Professor Mordin Solus; a salarian geneticist and professor. He's incredibly intelligent and a tad bit annoying. We found Mordin on Omega in a restricted area to protect the aliens of Omega from what Mordin determined was a Collector made plague, treating people and trying to come up with an antidote. In fact, in the past he was the leader of the Special Task Group; which was a group of salarian geneticist, chemists, sociologists, and mathematicians in order to create the genophage, which sterilized all the krogans. Mordin and his intelligence are a great asset to my team, even though his speech is extremely annoying.

Then comes Jack; an insane biotic that was created in a secret Cerberus base. Given the way she was experimented on and the fact that she's pretty much had to raise herself, she have a chip on her shoulder. Because of this she's spent mostly all of her life as a criminal, which is why we had to recruit her from what was supposed to be impossible to escape from; only to be led into a trap to get me locked up instead. Of course I couldn't let that happen and unfortunately my plan of escape also meant releasing all the prisoners in the jail.

Jack definitely didn't want to come with us, even with the prison about explode, basically because we were in a Cerberus frigate and the only way she would agree to come with us willingly was if I gave her access to the Cerberus files aboard the ship; much to Miranda's dismay, I agreed. Jack's not very social and has taken up camp in the bottom of the ship near engineering. I can only hope that she can be trusted.

The biggest surprise in the dossiers was the archangel; a man on Omega who had taken it upon himself to rid Omega of criminals and protect the citizens that lived there, kind of like a modern day robin hood. The surprising part was just who the archangel was; Garrus. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Getting Garrus out of there wasn't as easy as getting to him had been. We ended up having to go against two groups of mercenaries, the Blue Suns and the Blood Pack. In the end, Garrus took a rocket to the face but thankfully he survived. While I was waiting to talk to him I found myself just as nervous to see him as I was to see Joker. What if Garrus was angry at me for dying and then coming back? Thankfully, he was glad to see that I was alive; he was definitely surprised that I was working with Cerberus, but I assured him that it was only for this mission and that after it was over I was done with Cerberus.

Garrus believed me, but he was the only one. After recruiting Mordin, Jack and Garrus, I received a message from Admiral Anderson saying that he called a meeting with the council and that I needed to be there to discuss what was going on. Given the issues that I had getting the council to believe that Saren was working with the geth, I didn't get my hopes up as to them giving me any help; and of course they didn't, but they did reinstate me as a SPECTER so, there's that. Udina is still an asshole, but Anderson let me know that he supports me even though I'm working with Cerberus; it's good to have friends you know you can count on. I was so wrapped in my thoughts that I didn't even hear the door to my private quarters open.

"You know, when I said you should go rest, I kind of meant try and nap; not hangout on the couch." Joker said from the doorway. I've been back alive for a little over a month and it feels like I never left. We're the same as we've always been; me running through gunfire and taking every stupid risk possible and Jokes watching from the helm of the ship worried, only to try and mother-hen me to death when I came back aboard the ship; hence the fact that I was supposed to be "resting". I even did something that I meant to do on the SR-1 that I never got a chance to; ask Joker to move into my quarters with me. He was shocked at my asking, but thankfully he agreed. Everyone on the ship must have already knew about mine and Joker's past, because no one seemed really shocked that he was moving into my quarters; strangely Miranda seemed a bit disappointed, if not angry.

"Well, I was going to lay down, but the bed seems so lonely without you." I tell him giving him my best smile; the one he could never refuse.

Rolling his eyes he headed towards the bed. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing that I'm officially off duty then, isn't it?" Smiling I got up and joined him on the bed. I pulled him close and kissed him before spooning myself behind him.

"Yeah, it is good." I whispered to him. I was suddenly extremely sleepy and the last thing I remember is Joker reassuringly squeezing my hands before I fell asleep.


	5. Grunt & Kaiden

For all the military training, biotic skills, and gun fights that John gets into, when it comes to certain stuff he's like a kid in a candy store. For example, he's absolutely giddy about the pure-bred krogan that he's got down in the cargo hold. Miranda and EDI are less than impressed that John even brought it on the ship, and knowing John; he's going to open the tank.

I think John has some sort of special connection to krogan now that I think about it. I mean he was the one who recruited Wrex when we went after Saren and he was the only one that could talk him down when we were going to destroy Saren's base on Virmire. I always thought that maybe Wrex just say something in John that made him trust him, but if John can get this tank-born krogan to listen to him I will forever refer to him as "the krogan whisperer".

Grunt. That's the name that the krogan chose from himself; Grunt. Well, I guess being tank-bred doesn't exactly build a strong imagination, but it's amazing to see how much John is loving this; it's like he's adopted Grunt as him as his own kid. Which probably means that I'm a step-father to full-grown krogan; great.

After releasing Grunt the Illusive Man sent us the coordinates to a planet called Horizon. Horizon has been the latest planet that has been hit by the collectors and we needed to go and see if there was any evidence that could lead us to where they were going next or the reasoning for them to be taking humans from their homes. Thankfully, Mordin is as good as they claimed he was and was able to make something to protect John and the crew the swarms that the collectors were using; everything should've gone smoothly, but it didn't. For starters the collectors were still there and they had to fight against and then as if that wasn't bad enough; Kaiden was there.

Out of all the people that John could've ran into, it just had to be fucking Kaiden. Everyone always assumed that Kaiden and John were close friends, but that was the farthest thing from the truth. Sure Kaiden acted like everything was ok when people were around, but they really weren't. John always said that he felt like Kaiden was jealous of him, because he was in charge. I didn't want to believe it at first but after John died and the Council and the Alliance wanted to cover everything up, Kaiden was the only one of us to agree that it was a good idea; and from what I heard he's moved up in ranks at the Alliance since then. I didn't know that they had made him a SPECTRE though.

And then the shit that he was saying to John; all that bullshit about him being a traitor. In order for you to betray someone, they'd have to trust and believe in you to begin with; which the alliance doesn't. It was painful to watch John try and explain to Kaiden that what he, what we are doing is necessary but of course he just wouldn't listen. John has tried to act like it didn't bother him, but I know he's been having issues wondering about how people are going to feel now that's he's back. Me, Garrus and Anderson gave him hope that everyone would be glad to see him, and now I think that hope is gone.

John has been in the shower for the last two hours and I'm worried about him; but I know that he needs sometime to himself to work through his whole conversation with Kaiden. When he finally gets out of the shower, he looks much better. He begins looking around the cabin, searching for me and when his eyes land on me on the bed he smiles. He walks towards the bedroom area to change before crawling in the bed next to me.

"Hey." I said, unsure of how he was feeling at this point.

"Hey." He replied before pulling me close, laying my head on his chest. We were quiet for a while before I decided to ask.

"Are you ok?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess I was just hoping for a warm welcome from him; but then and again we didn't really see eye to eye beforehand." He said before shrugging and pulling me even closer to him.

"It doesn't really matter what he thinks or says; I know who and what is really important and it's not his opinion."


End file.
